


Dive In

by argentum_ls (LadySilver)



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Beaches, Chocolate Box Exchange 2020, Getting Together, Gift Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28661454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver/pseuds/argentum_ls
Summary: With an afternoon to themselves, Luke and Reggie decided to head to the beach for some fun and a change of view.
Relationships: Luke Patterson/Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 77
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Dive In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Black_Dwarf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Dwarf/gifts).



> Thanks, as always, to idelthoughts for the developmental support and beta work on this story.
> 
> Questions, comments, concrit, and kudos are all welcome.

“Wait! I just realized—” Luke spun to face Reggie and skipped backward a couple delighted steps in the sand. “—no one can see us!”

Luke’s sudden pronouncement snapped Reggie out of a haze he’d slipped into without being aware. With Alex out with Willie, and Julie at school, Luke had suggested he and Reggie spend the day at the beach, like old times. The comforting scent of salt water and wet sand tucked itself around Reggie as soon as he poofed in, and with the lapping of the waves on one side and Luke’s excited monologuing about their latest concert on the other as they strolled along the shoreline, he soon pleasantly lost of track of any of the details.

“What?” he asked.

“No one can see us!” Luke repeated, throwing his arms out like he was revealing a magic trick.

Reggie blinked at his friend. People called _him_ slow? The fact that they were visible only to Julie was one of the first things he, Luke, and Alex had learned about their new existences as ghosts.

“Do you have any idea what this means?” Luke pressed.

“That … no one can see us?” Reggie answered. He knew as soon as he said it that that wasn’t the right answer. Sometimes it was difficult to keep up with the way Luke’s mind skipped through topics; Reggie suspected that even Luke couldn’t always keep up with his own thought process. But Luke didn’t usually get so excited about things he couldn’t control.

“No, you dork! It means _they_ can’t see us!” Luke gestured with a sweep of his arms at a pair of teenage girls who were sunbathing on the beach only a few feet away and then another gaggle of girls who were laying along the shoreline, letting the lapping of the waves keep them cool while they tanned. All the girls wore bikinis and had the kind of figures that girls who lived in Hollywood spent a lot of time and money to achieve.

What Luke was suggesting clicked, and Reggie did a slow survey of the beach, suddenly noticing just how many teenage girls lay in repose on scattered beach towels. His jaw dropped and he felt his eyes widening the way they had when he saw the scantily-clad dancers at the Hollywood Ghost Club. Girls! Girls who were mostly naked!

Girls who had no idea that a couple teenage boys were ogling them! He’d dreamed about this so many times. It was practically the same as in “The Invisible Kid” when the main character used his power to sneak into the girls’ locker room at school.

To his surprise, something in the pit of Reggie's stomach soured.

When Luke had suggested they spend the afternoon hanging on the beach, he’d been excited to spend the afternoon, just the two of them. Since returning to the world, most of the time they spent together was connected to the band in some way. Not that Reggie minded that, because he loved the band. But, unlike Luke, he couldn’t eat, sleep, and breathe music. Not that he technically ate, slept, or breathed anything anymore.

“Come on: let’s go swimming,” Luke continued. Reggie started at the topic change, but before he had a chance to question how Luke got from watching the scenery to swimming, Luke started pulling his sleeveless t-shirt over his head. “Take your stuff off.”

“M-my stuff?” Reggie glanced down at his clothes: ripped jeans, white t-shirt, leather jacket. Not exactly beach apparel, sure, but he hadn’t thought to bring swimming trunks into the afterlife, and it wasn’t like he’d agreed to go swimming. Had that been Luke’s goal all along? “We're just going to drop our clothes here? What if they disappear?”

“They won’t,” Luke assured him, his confidence so strong that Reggie felt himself start to melt under its power. “We’ve changed clothes before. We’re ghosts, not slobs, and our clothes didn’t vanish then.”

“Yeah, but that was back at the studio; there might be different rules there.”

Luke paused with his jeans half-shimmied down his hips. “There aren’t. Rules about ghosts aren’t gonna change based on where we are.”

“They were different at the Hollywood Ghost Club,” Reggie pointed out. He didn’t think he was being unreasonable, but Luke obviously did.

“We’re not _at_ the Hollywood Ghost Club,” he countered, shooting Reggie an exasperated glare. “We’re never going back there, and I think we’d know if Caleb were here. Leave your boxers on, if you want. I don’t care. Let’s just go!”

When they were alive, Luke probably would’ve complained about how it was so hot out and they needed to cool off in the water, and then pointed out that five minutes in the sun was turning Reggie’s face red already. The temperature didn’t really affect them now, and Reggie didn’t think ghosts could get sunburned, so it was a relief when he didn’t have to think of excuses against those points. 

He frowned to himself. Why was he making excuses?

Also, his face wasn’t turning red from the sun.

“What if our clothes _don’t_ disappear?” Reggie heard himself ask. “Like, what if they _appear_ , and someone sees them suddenly pop into existence on the sand?” A horrible thought popped into his head. “What if someone _steals_ them? I’ll never be able to replace my jacket!”

With one shoe already kicked off and the other tangled in the leg of his jeans, Luke again paused. He squinted at Reggie like the sun was getting in his eyes, which was strange since the sun was almost directly overhead. “Dude, you’re stalling.” He got the second shoe free and spiked it onto the sand. “You’re. Stalling. Why?”

Reggie looked out at the ocean where waves swelled, crested, and crashed in a natural rhythm that started long before they were born and would go on long after they … He shook his head, cutting off the thought. “Maybe I don’t want to go swimming.”

“You … don’t … want ….” Luke’s head tilted and his expression became baffled. “You’re, like, half fish. You grew up with a beach as your back yard. How could you _possibly_ not want to go swimming?” He left enough pause for Reggie to open his mouth to answer before barreling on. “Have you _thought_ about what we could do out there now? No worries about undertows or sharks or ... or drowning. We can’t drown! We’re already dead!”

Those were all good points. Luke had obviously put a lot of thought into this. What he didn’t seem to understand was that he was standing on the beach, naked except for his own underwear. The sun was like a spotlight on him, highlighting the curves of muscles in his shoulders and chest and … down. And Reggie was the only one who could see him this way. The beach-full of beautiful girls completely faded from his awareness.

Then, just like that day in the studio when Luke was demonstrating his chemistry, he kissed his first two fingers and pressed them to Reggie’s lips. “Last one in the water’s a rotten egg!” Yanking off his underwear, he raced toward the waterline and dove in.

Once again, Reggie could only stand stunned in the wake of Luke’s personality. So much for not needing to worry about undertows. “Luke, wait!” He started toward the water, aware only after cold water soaked through his shoes and socks that he was still fully clothed. Hopping back, he shook a foot, scattering droplets of water back into the surf. How would they know if the rules for ghosts changed, he wondered, if they already didn’t make sense. He and his clothes were air; they shouldn’t be _able_ to get wet.

 _Think about it later,_ he chided himself.

Luke had already swum out to the breaker line and bobbed up and down with the waves. He turned to face Reggie and lifted his chin, inviting Reggie to join him out in the water the same way he invited Reggie to join him at his mic.

Being friends with Luke, Alex, and Bobby meant that Reggie didn’t get to make a lot of decisions, since the three of them—Luke, especially—were faster, louder, and more certain about all their ideas. Frankly, that was one of the things Reggie liked about being their friend. Leaders needed followers, and Reggie was happy to be their follower—even if following sometimes meant going out for street dogs when he’d have preferred pizza.

This, though, was a decision that was all his: Join Luke in the water and find out exactly what he’d meant with that kiss, or stay on land. He knew that if he stayed, they’d eventually return to the studio, pick up their instruments, and resume playing—as if that was all they ever intended to do together.

It was hardly a choice.

Quickly, Reggie retreated back up to dry land long enough to strip out of his clothes, piling his shoes, jeans, shirt, and jacket in that order on the sand. He started to step away, then went back and shuffled the pile so his jacket was at the bottom, in case the clothes did suddenly become visible to lifers. He also kept his boxers on. There were only so many risks he could handle at once.

Then, fully aware that he was running out of opportunities to change his mind, Reggie dove into the water. Being a ghost hadn’t diminished the strength of his swim stroke, and he soon found himself treading water less than an arm’s length from Luke, two lost souls together in the great big ocean. He’d have to remember that; maybe Luke could use it in a song someday. He vaguely wondered if any of the lifers nearby could see the disturbance Reggie and Luke were creating in the waves.

“So,” he said, instead. Water dripped from his air and ran down his face; he scraped his fingers through his hair to guide the worst of it away.

Luke dunked his head backward into the water to solve the same problem. The drenching darkened his hair so that it looked almost the same color as Reggie’s. He came back up with a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Took you long enough.”

Reggie didn't feel like responding to that, not when he had more important things on his mind. “You kissed me," he challenged. Despite the chill of the water, Reggie felt his face heat up. He became acutely aware that beneath the darkened surface, Luke was completely naked. “Twice.”

Luke shrugged, as if flirting came as naturally to him as blinking. The worst part was, it kinda did, and Reggie suspected that Luke didn’t always know that he was flirting.

Reggie’s face grew hotter, now from fear that he’d taken personally something that wasn’t meant for him, like returning a greeting from a stranger who meant it for the person behind you. The ocean’s floor had dropped away, out of reach of their feet if they wanted to keep their heads above the surface. “Did you—” He swallowed against a lump in his throat. “Did you _mean_ to?”

“Did want me to mean to?” Luke countered.

 _Last chance_ , Reggie thought. _Last chance for everything to go back to the way it was._ Before the thought finished forming in his head, he caught himself nodding dumbly. He didn’t dare open his mouth in case something embarrassing escaped about how much he wanted Luke to.

Then he noticed that Luke’s tongue kept darting over his lips and his arms were treading the water with frantic strokes, churning the surface hard enough to splash. He looked scared, Reggie thought. This is a Luke Reggie had only seen a handful of times, and one of them was the last time he could add “in his life” to the end of that sentence. Luke may have sounded like he was teasing just now, but Reggie knew he wasn’t, not with that expression. Luke used teasing and joking as a shield, so for him to allow himself to be this vulnerable meant he was serious. Really serious. 

If Luke could put himself out there, so could Reggie.

“Yeah,” he admitted, the syllable barely carrying over the shrieking of the gulls that reeled overhead.

The tension ebbed out of Luke’s expression and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Good,” he responded. “Me too.”

“OK,” Reggie said, grinning back. He’d never really considered the possibility of he and Luke _together_ before today, except that he’d always kinda taken it for granted that he and Luke were a package deal. 

They floated together, each waiting for the other to make the next, inevitable suggestion. Reggie’s arms were starting to get tired, and, OK, maybe they couldn’t drown, but that didn’t mean Reggie wanted to find out what would happen if he got a ghost cramp. Also, somehow they’d drifted out so far that Reggie could barely see the shore. 

“You think we should, like, poof back now?” Reggie made a vague gesture in the direction of the beach, and caught a faceful of briny water for his effort. “I mean, this is fun, but…” He glanced around at the expanse of water that surrounded them, choppy with swells that bobbed them up and down. There wasn’t much they could do this far out except continue to tread water, and that really wasn’t Reggie’s first choice.

It was also becoming clear that whatever Luke’s plan had been, he hadn’t thought it out past getting them _into_ the water.

“I want to check on my jacket,” Reggie continued. 

Luke sounded baffled as he asked, “Your jacket?”

Reggie nodded, concentrating so he didn't forget anything. “Then we can dry off, warm up—”

A familiar spark lit up Luke's eyes. “Make out?” he suggested, hopefully.

All right. Maybe Luke did have more to his plan. And it was one Reggie didn't mind following at all.

"OK," he agreed.

As Reggie felt the sand materialize beneath his feet, it occurred to him that there were other advantages to people not being able to see them—such as not needing to be worried about finding some place private.


End file.
